


shit, stubbed my toe again

by thefudge



Series: i hate so much about the things that you choose to be [2]
Category: Actor RPF, Riverdale (TV 2017) RPF
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, Fucked-up Friendships, Hate to Love, Jealousy, fiction so don't get it twisted, ost: tove lo - are u gonna tell her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22901422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: He's always knocking into shit when he's around her. The dull pain of a small injury is always there.
Relationships: Camila Mendes/Cole Sprouse
Series: i hate so much about the things that you choose to be [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646125
Comments: 13
Kudos: 70





	shit, stubbed my toe again

**Author's Note:**

> i wish i could write a classic "actors RPF" about these two where it doesn't turn into a Sally Rooney knock-off, but...here we are. i'm sorry, this fic is really up its own ass lol. anyway, you don't need to have read "minefields" but it adds a little somethin' somethin'.
> 
> (oh yes, this is based on that photo that was floating around of them having candle-lit dinner/drinks not so long ago. but everything around it and about it is so fiction, so cool your guns)

There’s a row of pink candles on the side of the table, little rosebuds haloing his face. Their table looks inordinately cozy, like they’re a family of four who left their kids at home. Cami swirls the wine in her glass and sticks her nose inside, taking a whiff. He watches her.

“You keep smelling the wine.”

“Trying to figure out how old it is,” she mumbles, voice heavy with sleep, even though she’s slept most of the day. 

“Just drink it.”

“Want to get me drunk?” she teases, but there’s no snark in her voice.

Cole leans back in his chair. His face, bathed in pink, looks faintly ominous. “I always want to get you drunk.”

“Gross.”

He nods. “Is me being disgusting helping?”

She shakes her head miserably. “Thanks, though.”

He leans forward, reaching out with his thumb over the flame. “So when do you think you’ll be over him?” 

Cami looks up. “What?”

“How long will you need to mope for?”

“I _just_ broke up –”

He taps his foot impatiently. “I know. I’m just trying to get a timeline. Will you still be thinking about him next month, for example?”

Cami opens her mouth, closes it. She bursts into a sad little laugh. “I don’t know. What kind of question is that?”

“I’m just wondering if you’re sad about breaking up, or about breaking up with _him_ specifically. People get sad at endings. They get used to something. They’re sad when the routine ends. They move on. So it is about that or about him?”

Cami levels him with a look. She’s known him long enough to know he’s not joking, it’s not a gimmick, it’s him trying to make this moment smarter than it has to be, it’s him having to _win_ the conversation, and it’s also him lashing out about something. She’ll find out what it is, he can never really shut up. The galling thing is that this whole “cheer you up dinner” was his idea.

“It’s about him,” she replies calmly.

“Huh.” He reaches out again and moves a candle from the ordered row. “Okay. So you loved him?”

“Yes.”

He makes a sound between laughter and choking. “Come on. Nobody _loves_ anybody. Not like that. It’s just people making grandiose statements because they’re hurting.”

She raises her chin. She’s cold, inexpressive. He’s still candle-pink.

“We said “I love yous” and we meant them. I’m sorry if you haven’t experienced that yet.”

Cole laughs, eyes like shards. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Really?” she says, and this time she takes a sip of her wine. “You’ve never been in love?”

“Oh sure, but it’s never love,” he argues, unruffled. “It’s not constant. It’s like stubbing your toe. You feel the pain for a few minutes maybe, and then it goes away. But hey, you might stub your toe again.”

Cami rolls her eyes. “If that’s your Woody Allen impression I hope your girlfriend hasn’t heard it.”

“She hasn’t.”

“Thought so. Anyway, you’re wrong and lying.”

Cole leans his head on his arm. “How do you know I’m lying?”

She remembers that one time over the phone when he told her he loved her, as a friend of course. Telling her how proud he was, how brave _she_ was. She shrugs. “I don’t think _you_ even know how you feel half the time.”

“Aww, you get me,” he mocks, but means it. “Well, I _do_ know how I feel about your break-up.”

There it is. Whatever’s bothering him always comes out. She takes a bigger gulp of her wine. “Uh-huh.”

“I feel pretty content,” he says, as the server brings their food.

For a few moments they can’t talk, but she contemplates starting an argument, just so she can feel raw about it. Just a series of “fuck yous” and “you’re a pretentious piece of shit” over and over again.

“You were saying you feel content,” she mutters instead after the server leaves.

“Oh yeah, big time,” he says, chewing on his food. “I don’t like that you feel bad about it, though. But I think you’ll be fine because you didn’t love him and it was just a nice holiday-like experience.”

Cami laughs. “Do go on about things that don’t concern you.”

“Nah, that’s all I had to say.”

She picks at her food. “So you’re rationalizing being jealous by claiming I never even loved him.”

Cole swallows. “I’m not rationalizing. I don’t have to be jealous. You didn’t love him.”

She inhales sharply. “Just to clarify, you’re happy I broke up with him, but that _doesn’t_ mean you were jealous before.”

“I wasn’t–”

“Meanwhile,” she interrupts him, “you’re allowed to be in a committed relationship, while I have to be single forever. Did I get the gist of it?”

He takes a while processing her statement. The way he bites his lip is almost apologetic. “Sounds like I’m a real asshole when you put it like that.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

They eat in silence for a while. They’re both hungry. To look at them, you wouldn’t think they’re having a really strange and bitter argument about unexamined feelings.

But she’s the grown-up in whatever this is.

“You’re pretty pissed I was with him to begin with,” she says after a while. 

“Could be,” he mutters noncommittally, which means _definitely yes_.

“That’s really unfair and stupid.”

He looks away. “Yeah. I’m known to be both.”

The cold is always a little sweet in Vancouver. They’re in the back of the car driving them to the hotel and he slides his fingers against hers, shoulder to shoulder. “Hey, I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

Cami smiles, wipes a dry tear from the morning that latched onto an eyelash. “No, you’re not.”

His jaw works for a moment. He relents. “Okay. I’m not. I wish I were, though.”

Her head leans back. He watches her.

“I guess,” she starts, unsure, “what you really want is for me to lie in bed alone and think about you while you’re yachting with your girlfriend and writing navel-gazing poetry. It strokes your ego or something.”

His face is close to her face. “Depends on what you’re wearing to bed.”

She laughs. “You’re a fucking shit.”

He kisses her then, just sort of leaps over her boundaries and tastes the air that comes out of her lips before she’s done talking. It’s a really brief linking of mouths, an almost friendly-not-so-friendly tender exchange, tinged with something metallic and hostile (always like that, when they peck, when his mouth slips south by accident), a spark that would be really fucking awful if they ever went to bed which they _won’t_ , but if she let him right now, he would probably slip his fingers inside her in this car, and she thinks, _you’re a bad person trying to be a good person, but you’re failing at it and you know you’re failing and you enjoy failing. You’re complacent. And I’m enabling you._

His fingers have a hard time releasing her jaw as she moves her head away.

She shifts away from him.

Cole looks out the window. She knows what he’s thinking. The argument he’d give her, all thought-out in his head. _You don’t want to be with me, anyway. You think I wouldn’t be good to you, and sure, I can’t totally disprove that. My rap sheet isn’t great in that regard. So I’m going to keep not being in love with people and I expect you to do the same._

He’s being callous and unfeeling, but faithful to her. There’s a terribly stupid logic to it all, she knows. But she shouldn’t let him get away with it, or at least she should tell him to play his cognitive dissonance to a different crowd. But maybe she won’t tell him that tonight.

What he’s _actually_ thinking is, _shit, stubbed my toe again._

(But he's lying about that too.

He's always knocking into shit when he's around her. The dull pain of a small injury is always there.)


End file.
